Simultaneous detection of five one-carbon metabolites in plasma using stable isotope dilution liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry

Disturbance in one-carbon (1-C) cycle occurs due to nutritional deficiencies (vitamin B12/folate) or specific genetic polymorphisms. This leads to altered levels of key 1-C metabolites such as SAM (s-adenosyl methionine), SAH (s-adenosyl homocysteine), methionine, homocysteine and MMA (methyl malonic acid). These 1-C metabolites are determinants of cellular methylation potential and epigenetic modifications of DNA which impairs metabolic pathways in several pathological diseases and developmental programming. Though methods were able to measure these analytes only independently, none of the methods detect simultaneously. Therefore we developed a method to measure these five 1-C metabolites in a single run using liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). We used stable isotopes dilution LC-MS/MS to measure the 1-C metabolites in human plasma. Blood samples were collected from pregnant women (n = 30) at early gestation in the ongoing, multicentre, prospective PRiDE study. Linearity exhibited across the calibration range for all the analytes with the limit of detection (LOD) of 1.005 nmol/l for SAM, 0.081 nmol/l for SAH, 0.002 μmol/l for methionine, 0.046 μmol/l for homocysteine and 3.920 nmol/l for MMA. The average recovery for SAM was 108%, SAH-110%, methionine-97%, homocysteine-91% and MMA-102%. The inter-assay CV for SAM was 7.3, SAH-5.6%, methionine-3.5%, homocysteine-7.0% and MMA-4.0%. The intra-assay CV for SAM was 8.7%, SAH-4.7%, methionine-5.4%, homocysteine-8.1% and MMA-6.1%. Pregnant women at early gestation with low B12 levels had significantly higher homocysteine, MMA, lower levels of methionine, SAM and SAM:SAH ratio and higher triglycerides. We developed a simple and rapid method to simultaneously quantify 1-C metabolites such as SAM, SAH, methionine, homocysteine and MMA in plasma by stable isotope dilution LC-MS/MS which would be useful to elucidate the epigenetic mechanisms related in the gene-nutrient interactions.